North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN) will soon change the provider of its funded general practice clinical audit tool from Pen CS (CAT4) to Outcome Health (POLAR).
The transition will be organised so that neither data collection abilities nor incentive payments will be impacted. Practices participating in the Australian Government’s Practice Incentives Program Quality Improvement (PIP QI) Incentive program will need to follow two simple steps to continue qualifying for this incentive.
There will be no costs to practices for installation or use of POLAR.
Why do general practices share data with PHNs?
General practices collect and store patient data in clinical information systems. If they wish, general practices can choose to share a de-identified version of this data with their local primary health network (PHN). The collection of data is governed by a data sharing agreement signed by the practice.
There are three main outcomes of general practices opting in to data sharing with PHNs:
- Eligible practices can receive the PIP QI Incentive payment by submitting the PIP Eligible Data Set to their local PHN. Practices may be eligible to receive up to $12,500 per quarter, depending on their size.
- PHNs can provide tailored quality improvement support to each individual practice, based on the needs of the practice and its patient population demonstrated by the data. Practices can also perform self-directed improvement activities using the clinical audit tool.
- PHNs use the de-identified data in population health planning, including regular health needs assessments submitted to the Australian Government, and for designing and commissioning services in response to the identified needs.
What is changing?
NWMPHN is committed to regular assessment of our data collection pathways to ensure we are efficiently delivering on the Commonwealth’s request to sample data, and provide practices with a tool that is practical for their quality improvement needs.
Following a due diligence process, we will soon be changing our in-practice data collection platform from CAT4 (provided by Pen CS) to POLAR (provided by Outcome Health).
Outcome Health is a Melbourne-based, not-for-profit organisation that works to support general practice and the broader community through a range of innovative clinical programs. POLAR is a clinical and population health data analytic system, already used by thousands of general practices across several primary health networks.
Free Pen CS software will continue to function until the end of the 2024-25 financial year and be used to extract data for the April to June quarter, after which POLAR will take over.
What steps do practices need to take?
From early April our team will be contacting all practices currently sharing data with NWMPHN to update data sharing agreements and organise software installation. This is a two-step process:
- Practices will soon receive an email containing a new data sharing agreement to be electronically signed by an authorised person using Docusign.
- Once signed, practices will receive an email from primarycaredata@nwmphn.org.au to arrange for the POLAR software to be installed at a time that suits the practice. This can be done quickly and supported remotely by Outcome Health.
The principles of our data sharing agreements remain in place. All data is de-identified and is aggregated at the practice (not practitioner) level. All use of data is consistent with the RACGP’s guidance for the secondary use of general practice data.
Online information sessions will be held soon, and we will keep practices informed throughout the transition process. For any enquiries, please contact primarycaredata@nwmphn.org.au
